Losehill Hall, Castleton

on either side of the Hope valley,
of parallel river, road, railway,
the two hills lean at each other
as if to butt, head to head;
Anglo-Saxons fought a battle here
- the local Celts kept out of it,
heads down, cultivating mistletoe -
Christian north v. pagan south,
camped respectively on what were called later
Win- and Lose-hill ...
but the result would never be definitive

locals pronounce it Loosehill -
nobody wants the name loser,
or perhaps it could shiver and shale-shift
like its neighbour Mam Tor; in its lee,
the Victorian squire, Robert Ashton,
built a hall, not to imitate Chatsworth
- it's on a much homelier scale -

but to lay down a base of substance
for his not-so-to-be-sniffed-at philanthropy,
as magistrate, councillor, alderman;
he would found too a Young Men's Institute

he had made his money from lead mining;
with his miners, men and managers
- all hatted, levelled - he was photographed,
and reputedly a kindly employer,
especially to Nellie, house- and nurse-maid,
to the childless widower all-but-daughter
- she had recipes for barley water, furniture polish,
to buff up his walnut corner whatnot
and oak invalid wheelchair - to whom he left
£500, a mutual loyalty bonus
- and the hall to his nieces and nephews

it's the twenties: Chadburn bought it, who'd boost
the Boy Scouts; from the forties, it was a Youth Centre
for the Co-op, where, to local suspicion,
they hosted Russians, till dividends dwindled;
since the sixties, the Peak's public bodies,
still chiefly to educate the young,
have developed and cherished it, to an eco-centre
(staff smoke outside its grounds of cultured trees,
dead-wood piles and woodchip for the boiler):
so, for this hall, this life, this planet,
we've to battle on, Winhill, Losehill -

the result will never be definitive

© Alec Rapkin
Poem commissioned by the Peak District National Park Authority and Castleton Historical Society